Robert Waska - Projective Identification in the Clinical Setting: A Kleinian Interpretation

There have been hundreds of articles and many books written by Kleinian analysts on the theoretical and technical aspects of projective identification (PI). These writings usually explore the concept of PI and cover the author's theoretical views of this mental mechanism. In other words, the question of what is PI has been deliberated many times over in the literature. I will not duplicate these efforts.

Instead, I am interested in what happens in the clinical situation, between patient and Kleinian analyst, regarding PI and the Kleinian interpretive stance. In other words, how exactly do Kleinians interpret projective identification? Rather than looking at what Kleinians propose would be theoretically helpful to interpret, I am focusing on what they actually say in the session to the patient to interpret the projective identification process. To better do this, I will summarize and comment on the overall direction Kleinians take in interpreting PI. After this review of the literature, I will take up my own approach, as a Kleinian analyst, to exploring and interpreting PI. I will do this by sharing extensive case studies in which PI played a central role.

Some Kleinian authors express specific ideas about the intrapsychic meaning or motivation of PI, but they do not necessarily take that up in their clinical interventions. There are many articles in which the author makes general, all-purpose recommendations about what to interpret or in which the author states something to the effect of I interpreted some of her phantasies about me, the internal objects she was trying to deal with, and the ways she was projecting them into me. Unfortunately, quite a few articles are presented in this vague manner, which makes it hard to see what is actually done in the clinical setting. Instead, I am looking at verbatim accounts of exactly what analysts said to the patient to interpret current PI dynamics occurring within the analytic situation.

Later, I will demonstrate with my own clinical material exactly what I say to patients who rely on this important psychological method of coping and relating.

In I start out by presenting a detailed study of the literature, noting exactly what Kleinian analysts say and do in the PI moment. While these literature reviews are lengthy and categorical, they serve to set a background of understanding for the day-today analytic atmosphere in which PI takes place. One realizes from this detailed study that actual clinical evidence of Kleinian work with PI analysis is sparse.

looks at the more usual methods Kleinians utilize when encountering the PI process. These approaches are organized into the main categories that emerge in the literature.

examines the same data, but looks at the more atypical ways some Kleinians choose. There are far fewer examples, but they provide a glance at more novel or unusual ways of working with patients who rely on PI dynamics.

After provides a synthesis of these findings. Links are provided between the various approaches so one can better see how these methods really work in the real world. In doing so, one notices quite an overlap in these different technical methods.

begins the more clinical side of the book. Here, I explain the ways PI occurs within various psychological constellations. Depending on the intrapsychic make-up of the patient, he or she will experience and use PI in very different ways.